Computing and communication have become exercises that are largely independent of geography, network wires, and device limitations. That is, computing devices have become smaller, more powerful, and more power efficient. Similarly, wireless communication networks have been migrating to 3G speed providing wireless high-speed access to the Internet from virtually anywhere on the globe.
Even with these improvements, individuals often still find it necessary to meet occasionally in person and to present information and materials in print format. So, the need for printing information has not substantially waned as was originally expected or anticipated. As a result, the ability to print to any place at any time has not experienced any significant breakthroughs even with the advancements in other technological areas.
Accordingly, what typically happens when an individual wants to print a presentation out for a remote site is that the individual physically travels to the remote site and hooks into the printer network to print that presentation or that individual emails the presentation to a user at the remote site and requests that the user print the presentation out. The individual who wants to print the presentation has no real independence in this exercise and is forced to rely on other resources to assist him/her in accomplishing the print job in a timely and location-specific manner.
Moreover, even if the individual can schedule a print job for execution at a later date and time there is still no assurances that the print job will complete on time because other more important or even less important print jobs may bump the desired print job from its location in a print queue thereby delaying a scheduled start time for the print job. Also, the desired print job may be quite large and may take more time than the individual originally believed that it would, such that even if the print job does print on schedule it may not complete in time for the individual's meeting.
Thus, what are needed are improved techniques for scheduling and guaranteeing print jobs.